When budgets were budgets. Federal Budget 2017

For many years now, Federal budget day has become the moment when we got our best glimpse into the direction of our current government. What would be the priorities? What would be left out? What could we expect to see dollars do in terms of policy direction? These are questions we’ve become use to getting answers to on a budget day in recent years.

In many ways, yesterday’s budget tabling was no different.  Most notably for the work of my sector, the Government announced it would be investing over $11 billion of earmarked infrastructure funding to develop a National Affordable Housing strategy. This is hugely significant in and of itself. The investment is good – maybe not as much as what was asked for – but certainly substantial enough to make a difference. Even more importantly I would argue, it signals the Federal government’s willingness to share a collective responsibility for addressing what is an increasingly pressing issue. Our most senior level of government has been conspicuously absent from the table as Canadian communities grapple with issues like ending homelessness, alleviating the effects of poverty and preparing for an aging population – all issues which rely heavily on having an adequate supply of affordable housing stock. Cities have been sounding the alarm for years that they are struggling to meet existing demand and are woefully unprepared to meet expected demand as babyboomers age. Currently, one in four Canadian households (more than 3 million) spent at least 30% of their household income on shelter costs and this figure is expected to rise.

So if all of this is great, what’s missing? Well, as some critics have pointed out today, this budget proposal is very short on detail.  With the exception of illuminating three broad categories for how this National Affordable Housing investment would be spent, there is little revealed about what this might mean at the local level.  And that, to me, is the most interesting and important departure this budget proposal makes from those tabled in recent years. The money has been set aside by government, but the policy that will govern how this money is spent is being co-created between government and community stakeholders, including the National Housing Collaborative, chaired by United Way of Toronto and York region’s Pedro Barata. The strategy is expected to be released in the next few months.

To my mind, therefore, this budget fulfills another important promise made by this government: to develop policy in a more “decentralized, results-driven and consultative way”.  So yesterday’s budget was just a budget. The real work lies ahead. The task of creating more affordable housing options for Canadians, while removing the barriers that have impeded us to date, is complex, multi-jurisdictional and evolving. The issue of affordable housing itself is competing with many other priorities and against great distractions. It makes sense to pursue a collective policy-making approach if we ever hope to change the status quo and I believe what this budget lacks is something we've been missing.

Today’s Ottawa’s Affordable Housing scenario by the numbers:

• 39% of all households in Ottawa pay more than 30% (representing over 44,000 households) to housing costs; 19% (nearly 22,000 households) are spending in excess of 50%! (Alliance to End Homelessness Ottawa, 2015 Progress Report)
•  Between 2014 and 2015, the number of families with children living in shelters increased by nearly 11%. Children aged 17 and under represented over 1 in 5 emergency shelter clients in Ottawa. (Alliance to End Homelessness Ottawa, 2015 Progress Report).
• The number of senior adults using emergency shelter beds is rising. (Alliance to End Homelessness Ottawa, 2015 Progress Report).
• Some people in our community will find it more challenging to find accommodation at all – let alone “affordable” options. If a prospective tenant is poor, disabled, non-white, very young, suffering from mental-health issues, fresh out of jail, or newly immigrated,... study after study has shown they will be the last chosen by a landlord.
• Only 34 new affordable housing units opened in Ottawa in 2015 (the least since 2005). (Alliance to End Homelessness Ottawa, 2015 Progress Report)
• Ottawa's vacancy rate has been around 3% for several years now, and CMHC is forecasting it will stay around that mark for the next two years. (Canadian Mortgage and Housing Corporation)
• Average rental rates in Ottawa range from $812 a month for a bachelor unit to $1,457 for a unit with three or more bedrooms. (CMHC)
• There are 22,500 social housing units in Ottawa; and according to the Social Housing Registry, social housing in Ottawa is consistently and significantly oversubscribed.  As of December 2015, 10,099 households had their names registered on the waiting list. (Alliance to End Homelessness Ottawa, 2015 Progress Report)
• Of those 22,500 social housing units, 18,931 are under City of Ottawa oversight – primarily through the arms’ length landlord, Ottawa Community Housing.
• Ottawa Community Housing’s 2017 budget forecasts about $160 million in revenues (inc. rent and subsidies) and more than $196 million in expenses. That’s a gap of $36 Million. http://www.och-lco.ca/corporate-information/